Saw Spidey 3 today, after waiting for months and months to see the alien costume on celluloid. It’s kind of hard to say which of the three installments I enjoyed the least at this point, but the first one is still easily the most engaging, if only for the fact that the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end the first time Peter climbs up a wall. (I had been waiting all my life to see a really good wall-crawling sequence, and the look of awe on Tobey Maguire’s face when he realizes that he’s got these crazy new abilities was a fan boy’s dream come true.)

III is an interesting animal though. There are sequences here that’ll make your jaw drop — good and bad in equal proportions. The Sandman’s birth is certainly a sight to behold, as is the very interesting use of pipes in the final battle between Spidey and Venom. (In the comics, Spidey uses a sonic gun borrowed from the Fantastic Four to subdue the symbiote.) Unlike the first movie, the fight sequences in III are all very well-executed, superior even to the already superb Octopus matchup in II. The sheer number of villains in this movie guarantee that there’s a big fight every half-hour or so, nestled in between a cringe-inducing teen drama that feels more like Dawson’s Creek than The Amazing Spider-man. (On the other hand, if it works for Smallville …)

Indeed, it’s the constant attempts at character-development that really bring this feature down. Sam Raimi somehow manages to pack the story arc of your average chinovela’s full season — complete with subplots and supporting characters — into a running time of about 80 minutes (the Spidey sequences account for the remaining 40 minutes or so). As you can imagine, this results in some seriously fragmented pacing and some strange dead-ends: we never see the results of Eddie Brock’s Photoshoppery (we only know he was humiliated because he said so), or the fate of Flint Marko’s daughter, or the state of Peter’s relationship with Gwen Stacy.

And don’t even get me started on the dancing. The emo hairdo and eyeliner was bad enough, but to have Peter strutting about like a freakish, non-mutant John Travolta? (I silently thanked God that he didn’t do the oft-parodied Pulp Fiction dance move; I would have walked out of the theater right there.) I thought it unbelievable that test audiences did not universally pan that entire sequence, to be honest. Wouldn’t some scenes with Spidey seriously maiming some random criminals have been a more effective — not to mention far less revolting — way to show his increased aggression? This isn’t exactly Stomp the Yard, you know what I mean?

But whatever. Spider-man III is the first of the big summer movies, so we still have a long way to go in terms of over-the-top marketing hype and the inevitable disappointments. I suppose you just have to learn to treasure the small moments of brilliance instead of dwelling on the overwhelming ludicrity. It’s actually kinda fitting that my favorite scene in the entire movie was the Bruce Campbell cameo at the French restaurant. Pass me my boomstick, s’il vous plait?